"Auction Price Formation with Costly Occupants: Evidence Using Data from the Osaka District Court"

Foreclosure properties sold at Japanese judicial auctions are delivered to buyers with an unclear title when occupants exist, because the foreclosure laws protect occupants from compulsory execution of auctions. The existence of occupants theoretically affects the auction price through two channels. First, it affects the reserve price, and this changes in auction price. Second, the number of bidders changes in response to changes in the reserve price that is controlled by occupants, and this changes the auction price. Using data from the Osaka District Court, we empirically find that the existence of occupants in properties reduces the auction price through two channels.

Distortionary Taxation, Excessive Price Sensitivity, and Japanese Land Prices

Japan has experienced turbulent behavior of land prices after World War II, especially after 1985. This paper first examines the explanatory power of a simple present-value model and shows its limitation. We then investigate two additional (not mutually exclusive) factors affecting the Japanese land price behavior: distortionary inheritance and capital-gains taxation, and excessive price sensitivity due to the non-Walrasian structure of the land market. Empirical results show that distortionary taxation is a major culprit of high residential land price, and that the non-Walrasian price behavior magnifies the effect of underlying change in the market fundamentals.

Strategic interaction between inter vivos gifts and housing acquisition

This paper models the interdependence of parental inter vivos gifts and children\u27s home purchases when informal care affects decision making. We use data from Japanese households who purchased a detached house in an urban area to test this strategic interaction. Considering both censoring and endogeneity of inter vivos gifts, which are identified by information on formal care, our preferred results demonstrate that inter vivos gifts do not significantly increase the purchase price of housing. Theory suggests that this occurs when informal care tends to be a heavy burden for children. However, subsample analysis of young home buyers indicates that the empirical results are consistent with the literature: children who receive parental gifts tend to purchase a higher-priced dwelling. One potential explanation is that relatively young adult children are less likely to take charge of care obligations, and accordingly, parental gifts are only expected to relax their liquidity constraints. Subsample analysis appears to indicate that the underlying motivation of parental gifts is influenced by the timing of children\u27s home purchase decisions

Auction Price Formation with Costly Occupants : Evidence Using Data from the Osaka District Court

Foreclosure properties sold at Japanese judicial auctions are delivered to buyers with an unclear title when occupants exist, because the foreclosure laws protect occupants from compulsory execution of auctions. The existence of occupants theoretically affects the auction price through two channels. First, it affects the reserve price, and this changes in auction price. Second, the number of bidders changes in response to changes in the reserve price that is controlled by occupants, and this changes the auction price. Using data from the Osaka District Court, we empirically find that the existence of occupants in properties reduces the auction price through two channels

Strategic interaction between inter vivos gifts and housing acquisition

July 2011To consider the policy event of a gift tax reduction earmarked for housing acquisition, the interdependence of parental gifts and children's housing investments is modeled, considering an informal care issue behind such decision making. The empirical results, which use a sample of households who purchased a house in Japan, demonstrate that such a tax cut would appear to have the following limited effects on boosting housing investment in equilibrium. First, even though transfers are encouraged, they consequently reduce housing investment because the housing investment function is negatively related to gifts. Second, increments in housing investment are further discouraged because the slopes of the gift and housing investment functions have opposite signs.グローバルCOEプログラム = Global COE Program29, [11] p

Auction Price Formation with Costly Occupants: Evidence Using Data from the Osaka District Court

Judicial auction, Foreclosure law, Occupant, Auction price,